The Lamb
by Jimmy the Gothic Egg
Summary: All Jacob wanted to do was say goodbye.


Finally listened to the last four minutes of The Broken Bride Part III (that song is eight minutes long and I have a short attention span) and Part IV, and it made me want to write fanfiction of Jacob.

_The Lamb_

Her smell permeates the air like a knife into his heart, and Jacob stops, hands searching for support, and his lungs burn with the air he breathes, and all he can think is _Bella Bella Bella_, because she's everywhere, and for a moment she is his world, his air, and if he stops she'll go away forever all over again, disappear into the night like a ghost.

He breathes again, and she's still there, not as strong, but he can find her. A third breath tells him the smell is _changing_, twisting into something grisly, and the fourth smells like death. Desperation overtakes him. He feels the eternity between them, and the mix of city smells hinders his search.

In the end, he finds her.

The church is old and crumbling, the victim of a fire some years back, and he can still smell the smoke as the floorboards crunch. The wolf wants free now—the wolf has wanted free for years but he hasn't given in yet—but the human bit of him says the vampires, the bloodsuckers, the killers, they may be close, and he stops, taking a deep breath he needs so very much.

The smells fill his imagination. They don't have color or shape but he can feel them as if they did: Bella twisted in pain, red as blood, black as death, and the smoky smell of small fires at his feet, but no Cullens blip across his radar, except for the vague smell of Edward Cullen, old by hours and gone now from this place. He's not spending every moment by her side, and if he could believe, he'd thank whatever creator for this small opportunity. He could never win her heart, but he could at least say goodbye.

He creeps still, on alert, and he pushes back a door that looks ready to give out but stands strong for the prize inside. He has to push with his shoulder, but it allows him in, revealing Bella, stretched on a bed, body limp but twitching with pain, face contorted with effort, and she's so much paler than he ever remembers. A cold washcloth now reaching room temperature tries to give comfort on her forehead, and it stinks of Edward. He removes it carefully, placing his own hands on her cheeks, leaning forward to take in her scent. Their lips are centimeters apart but he can't manage to fill the space. There's so much he wants to say that he thinks she won't hear, and sob breaks in his throat as he takes this all in. She's dying, and he knows it won't be long until she's gone (but not forever, which is how long she'll have, how long she'll share with someone that isn't him).

He's crying now, and he hates himself, but he's holding her tight, sobbing into her, and she groans with the effort, hands clenching and unclenching. He holds her hands tight, and she squeezes back. Her breathing is labored and her tear ducts are wet, and her smell is twisting and writhing and he can see inside that she just wants to die.

Soon, he wants to croon, but the words escape him, because he doesn't want her to die, and he's stupid and cruel for thinking that. The death will be a relief, and the afterlife a party, but he thinks I want you here and now, human and alive and breathing, and the pain's unbearable, but that's what life is without you.

She stops twitching, and her final breath leaves her. He catches it in a chaste kiss, because he wants her to know before she's gone away again that he never stopped thinking about her, that it was always her he wanted, and he may have disappeared from her life, but he never went away, never stopped looking, never stopped wanting her to be happy.

There's a smile as she falls against the pillow, immortalized on her soft face, and he thinks, but the thoughts are so frayed and tattered he can't put them together. He touches her face one last time, memorizing it (though he already has), never forgetting her warmth.

Her smell still mingles with the morning air, and he saves that away as well. He's not ready to leave yet, but he knows Edward will be back, ready to take his bride into their new life, and he knows he should be gone by then.

And then…

Her finger twitches, but with a purpose. Her hand is searching, and it travels up his arm as she lifts to allow it to meet his face. Her eyes open.

Startling, is what he thinks, because his whole mind fills with her eyes. His brain processes the rest of her face as it changes, as it shifts to remain Bella but a different Bella, one that craves darkness and craves things enough to kill for them, a more dangerous Bella who smiles at him like he was the only thing she'd ever wanted to see, like the way she did when they woke up together one tiring today, but it's her eyes, her beautiful eyes that he remembered as chocolate brown, deep and rich and worth looking into for hours, her eyes are now a deep, dark red.

She opens her mouth like a snake and whispers, "_Jacob…_"

She reaches for him, and when she kisses him it's with passion and fire and he thinks he could burn at her touch.

And he swims in a mix of pleasure and pain as she bites.

He's aware he's bleeding, but his thoughts are filled with her, and the wolf no longer bucks and howls…

She's feeding, but he doesn't care. He only wants her to be happy…

Her mouth moves downward, biting into neck…

And darkness closes in, and Jacob smiles…

--

Edward blames Alice, and she might've claimed she was only off by a few minutes, and he could've gotten there _early_, but she's quiet as they talked, and Bella licks her fingers as she stares up at them, lips crimson, shirt ruined, eyes red as the blood that stains her face.

"I knew him," she says, like coming out of a dream. Edward looks at her, then away, because he's always known the monsters that lied inside of him, but he never imagined once they could hide inside her as well. Alice steadies her gaze on him, waiting for what he'll say next.

"Jacob Black," is all he mutters, and there's a history hidden in his tone, a story between the spaces, and Bella starts as if the truth was shaken into her. Alice merely waits, watching.

Bella's mouth hangs open. She looks sick. She stares at the blood on her fingers with horror.

"It'll take a minute," he continues softly, and he's staring at the body now. Like he'd rather look at that than Bella. Alice does not move her stare.

"You were friends," she prompts lowly, and in the spaces, she really says, "You loved him."

Tears run down Bella's face now, and she takes a shaky breath as if she'd just remembered that's what bodies do. "But I was so hungry," she says. "And… And he was so _willing_."

Alice didn't doubt it. If Edward refused to acknowledge Bella's feelings towards Jacob, they'd been clear to Alice. And you didn't need to be a mind reader to see how far he'd go for her.

Bella snaps her attention to Edward, pleading with her eyes to make it go away, to reverse it, to make it not be Jacob, please, please, anyone but Jacob…

Their gazes meet, and Alice turns away. She doesn't need sight to see the pain in his eyes. He never wanted to do this to her, and Alice is ashamed how much she wanted it. She thought it would make everyone happier, fight off the darkness that Edward carried with him, but she could never see into the future of the werewolves. No one ever asked if they were happy, and she supposes they all knew the answer.

Edward takes Bella's hand and helps her stand, helps her over the fallen body, still leaking what was left in its veins (and she thinks 'it' and sobs), and together they leave. Alice knows what will happen when Bella steps onto the street, the onslaught of smells and the smell of blood everywhere, hidden beneath a thin layer of skin in each and every human, only a scratch away, and when you're new, you're always hungry, always wanting, and it would be an eternity before that went away.

Alice kneels down on the floor, her yellow dress turning red where it finds blood, and she places a gentle hand on Jacob Black's face. She never liked him, and he always had the hideous smell that werewolves tended to carry, but she can feel for him now, give him a moment of peace that he probably never had.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to his glassy eyes. The apology isn't just for him, but for the couple she's harmed, the world she's changed, and all those who knew Jacob Black and maybe still dreamed he would come home. "I am so sorry," she repeated, and she stood up pushing back her hair and cringing when she realizes she's bloodied her hand. "For everything I've gotten wrong."

The sun rises above an empty church and is quickly hidden behind dark clouds.


End file.
